Following Monday’s rejection in the House, the Senate plans to vote today on the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. Lawmakers are said to have revised the bill following public outcry, but critics say the measure includes only slight, cosmetic changes. We get an update from Washington insider and former Senate Banking Committee chief economist Robert Johnson and speak to veteran journalist William Greider of The Nation magazine....

On Monday, the House voted 228-to-205 against authorizing the largest government intervention in the financial market in US history. The measure would have granted the Treasury unprecedented authority and up to $700 billion to relieve faltering banks and other firms of bad assets backed by home mortgages, which are falling into foreclosure at record rates. As the economic crisis worsens and spreads across the globe, we speak with Robert...

The House is set to vote today on a $700 billion emergency bailout plan for the financial industry. The proposed legislation was forged during a marathon negotiating session over the weekend between lawmakers from both parties and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The 110-page bill would authorize Paulson to initiate what is likely to become the biggest government bailout in US history, allowing him to spend up to $700 billion to relieve...

We now move three-quarters of a century back in time to 1933. It was the middle of an era that our current moment is sometimes compared to: the Great Depression. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt took his oath of office in March of that year, over 10,000 banks had collapsed, following the stock market crash of 1929. One-quarter of American workers were unemployed, and people were fighting over scraps of food. We play an excerpt of FDR’s...

The nation’s financial crisis has intensified as federal regulators seized Washington Mutual on Thursday in what is the largest bank failure in American history. Federal regulators have arranged to sell off most of the bank at a bargain rate to JPMorgan Chase. We get analysis from New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and economics professor Michael Zweig. [includes rush transcript]

As President Bush was holding an emergency economic summit at the White House, protesters took to the streets across the country to oppose a Wall Street bailout. In New York, a series of demonstrations occurred near the Stock Exchange. [includes rush transcript]

As the Bush administration intensifies its pressure for Congress to quickly approve a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, we get reaction from Independent presidential candidate and consumer advocate Ralph Nader. Nader calls Democratic claims of White House concessions "wish fulfillment" and says the bailout might not be needed in the first place. [includes rush transcript]

Among the more than 100 protests against the $700 bailout plan is a rally today on Wall Street. We speak to Arun Gupta, a reporter/editor at The Indypendent newspaper, whose email to friends and colleagues helped inspire the protest. Participants are planning on bringing their own personal, unwanted "junk" to illustrate what they call the federal bailout of Wall Street’s worthless securities. [includes rush transcript]

Both Democratic and Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee lambasted the Bush administration’s proposed $700 billion bailout plan Tuesday. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke repeatedly clashed with almost every senator on the committee, all of whom focused on Wall Street’s culpability for the crisis. Many also brought up executive pay and emphasized the need for oversight of the...

While the collapse of this country’s financial system continues to send shock waves around the world, we speak to the bestselling author of The Shock Doctrine. Naomi Klein says the public should be wary of the Bush administration trying to use the crisis to push through more of the radical pro-corporate policies that helped cause it in the first place. [includes rush transcript]